While many Arizona schoolchildren in urban areas are downloading videos from the Internet at the snap of a finger, some in the state’s rural schools are twiddling their thumbs to the dated jingle of a dial-up modem.

Gov. Jan Brewer has made it her mission to address the digital disparity and is pushing a budget proposal to boost the state’s broadband infrastructure. To help pay for the upgrades, which would cost state and private entities $350 million, the state would charge school districts and charter schools $15 per child for the next six years.

But many education and political leaders aren’t buying her sales pitch,saying students may be a sympathetic face for the need, but the governor’s plan would primarily benefit private companies and homeowners.

Many schoolsalready have access to faster Internet connections. And those without access to it likelycouldn’t afford the equipment needed to connect, according to some critics of the plan.

Chuck Essigs, director of government relations for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials, said funding for Brewer’s plan should come from the state general fund, not schools.

“We need to stop looking at it as something that will only benefit schools,” Essigs said. “This will be an information highway. When the freeway expanded from Phoenix to Flagstaff, Camp Verde wasn’t sent the bill.”

The current proposal would take that broadband to a school’s front door, but the schools would then be responsible for upgrading their internal infrastructure to a level that could connect to the faster broadband. The schools would still have to pay for Internet access, just as homeowners and private businesses do.

Schools in communities that already have access to faster broadband would still have to pay the $15-per-student assessment.

If the Legislature approves the plan as part of its fiscal 2015 budget, the infrastructure expansion will be included in a new state Internet service provider contract that will be put out to bid this fall. The goal is to get the entire state up to 100 megabits per second. Private companies would pay half of the $350 million cost, students would cover one-quarter and the state would use federal funding for the rest.

The broadband would be owned by the company that installs it, not by the state.

Brewer and her staff have been selling the program as vital to schools.

“We’re 20 years behind some of our sister states,” state Budget Director John Arnold said. “It is detrimental to economic development and education in rural Arizona as our schools become more heavily dependent on the Internet.”

According to the Governor’s Office, 11 percent of Arizona schools currently have access to 100 Mbps speeds, and the median data rate of Arizona schools is 12 Mbps. Her figures include public and charter schools.

“We have three schools still on dial-up,” Arnold said.

Brewer’s budget proposal states: “This lack of sufficient broadband availability leaves schools without access to critical resources and makes transition to an online assessment difficult if not impossible for more than 40 percent of Arizona’s schools.”

Varying speeds

According to 2012 data from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Arizona ranks 42nd in the nation for broadband speed. More current data place Arizona much higher.

Arizona ranks 13th in the nation in terms of current broadband download speed, according to January data from the testing company Ookla. But in the West, Nevada, Washington and Utah have faster download speeds.

Within Arizona, broadband speeds and access varies widely.

Among the municipalities, Paradise Valley, Avondale and Fountain Hills have the fastest download speeds. Camp Verde, McNary and Sedona have the slowest, according to Ookla data.

Among school districts, 21 percent have broadband capacity that reaches or exceeds the state’s goal of 100 MbpsCQ. About half have less than 25 Mbps, according to a report provided by the Governor’s Office of Education Innovation.

Critics of Brewer’s proposal say it is unfair to large districts like Mesa and Peoria Unified, which already have spent local dollars to increase broadband.

“This proposal would not help Mesa as we currently have and need more capacity than 100 Mbps,” said Bobbette Sylvester, the district’s assistant superintendent for business and support services.

“At this time, we have service of 100 Mbps at the elementaries, 200 Mbps at the junior high schools and a gigabit at the high schools.”

Mesa’s Internet expansion is being paid for with local bond funds, as is a similar program in Peoria.

“In Peoria, we implemented a fiber-optic network four years ago through our bond program,” said Ken Hicks, the district’s chief financial officer.

Tim Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association, contends that the proposal is unfair to all school districts.

Broadband “is a basic responsibility of state government, not of individual school districts,” he said.

President Barack Obama reiterated his goal of getting high-speed Internet into every classroom and this week announced that the Federal Communications Commission and private sector are investing significant money into the effort. Details are not yet available on whether the $2 billion that the FCC will invest nationwide over the next two years could cover some of costs in Arizona.

Modern testing

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal supports Brewer’s proposal, citing a move to new statewide assessment testing.

“As we transition from AIMS to our new assessment, we must consider the technology readiness of our schools,” Huppenthal said in his State of Education speech earlier this week. “We risk losing a competitive advantage for our students if we don’t provide modern testing environments that other states and industries are providing.”

He said a lack of access to faster broadband blocks schools’ ability to download instructional videos and intensive graphics as well as their ability to conduct real-time online instruction. Having those speeds, he said, will allow schools to customize learning for every student.

“We have a moral obligation to bring this technology to every student in the state, particularly those in high-poverty neighborhoods,” Huppenthal said.

When asked whether schools would have their own infrastructure to access improved broadband, he said it will at least bring technology to the front door of all schools in the state.

“They’ll just have to do the last inch,” he said.

Andrew Morrill, president of the Arizona Education Association, called the effort to improve broadband “a great idea.”

But Morrill called the proposal to bill schools for improvements that would benefit organizations ranging from hospitals and libraries to private businesses “a terrible idea.”

‘Work in progress’

The debate is now in the hands of the state Legislature, which will decide whether to include the proposal in the fiscal 2015 budget.

“It’s going to help Arizona a lot,” Shooter said. “This is a proposal I’ve been working on for three years.” But he said the details are up for negotiation. “It’s a work in progress,” he said.

Brewer’s staff said the same when pressed for additional details.

“This is all at a very early stage of development, so there are likely to be questions without known answers for the time,” Brewer spokesman Andrew Wilder said.

“It’s complicated for sure, but Governor Brewer is confident it’s a problem that can be solved. This will be a multiyear project that we’ll have to approach one step at a time, and that’s why Arizona is starting to take those steps now.”

Many Democrats in the Legislature are critical of the proposal in its current form, as are at least a handful of Republicans.

“This is not going to help the schools at all that don’t already have the internal wiring and technology in their buildings,” said Rep. Lela Alston, D-Phoenix. “It could be there on the street corner for decades, but if you can’t go and get what you need inside to hook up, what’s the point?”

Sen. Lynne Pancrazi, D-Yuma, said education carries too much of the cost burden under the proposal. “Education is paying for everybody to get broadband,” she said. “I’m very much opposed to that.”

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, said the Legislature needs to find the $15 million a year over six years somewhere other than the schools, particularly when the expansion would help businesses as much as schools.

‘Penalizing schools’

“We do not need to be penalizing the schools that have already done this,” he said.

Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Peoria, agreed. Residents in the Peoria School District in 2012 passed a $180 million bond that included $10.3 million for technology infrastructure.

“Why should taxpayers have to pay twice when they already, on their own, brought the schools up to this level?” he asked. “They’re going to penalized because they were ahead. I don’t think that’s right.”

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